A Gainesville man who vandalized Gainesville City Hall and the Old Library Building last March was sentenced on Tuesday by an Alachua County judge.
As part of plea deal with prosecutors, James Alexander Dewar, 42, pleaded no contest on Jan. 14 to charges of criminal mischief and making threats against a public servant. He was sentenced by Judge David Kreider to nine months in jail, however, he was given credit for almost eight months of time served. He also will serve three years of probation and was ordered to pay the city more than $15,000 in damages.
Dewar was also banned from City Hall and the Old Library Building.
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According to the sworn complaint, Dewar was caught last March committing three acts of vandalism. He also left two notes that cited his disapproval of the city’s initiative on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
On March 2, Dewar threw a note attached to a piece of slate tile through the front glass doors of the Old Library Building, 222 E. University Ave., in downtown Gainesville.
Dewar wrote, “Keep giving all our jobs to the blacks and hispanics. Retribution is coming. Trump 2024.” Dewar also wrote the letters “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) and “encircled with a don’t symbol.”
Sometime between March 13 and March 18, a “chunk of brick” was thrown through a second-floor window at City Hall.
And on March 26, city staff found Mayor Harvey Ward’s north office window at City Hall shattered. Officials found multiple rocks and a note directed at Ward calling for an end to the city’s Office of Equity and Inclusion.
“You won’t listen to our words, so we now speak in the language of our January 6th brothers and sisters. … And no I am not racist, I’m simply tired of us whites having to take it on the chin. Those days are over and anyways, people like me do not care about being called racist! (you called me that at a meeting.) Don’t make me turn this place into the Alfred P Murrah building,” the note said.
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured nearly 700 others.
The second note had the same encirclement of “DEI” notation that was left at the library building.
Mayor Harvey Ward said in a press release that he and his fellow commissioners will continue to do the work that they were elected to do.
“A broken window and ugly note will not shake our resolve,” Ward said. “We will stay on course and do the work.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville Florida man sentenced for vandalizing City Hall